The Armen Show

Tag: interview

  • 307: Rebecca Schwarzlose | The Maps Inside Our Mind Detailed In “Brainscapes”

    Are there detailed maps of representations of sights, sounds, and action held in our brain? Postdoctoral scholar Rebecca Schwarlose joins us to discuss this topic and more from her latest book Brainscapes: The Warped, Wondrous Maps Written in Your Brain―And How They Guide You.

    Rebecca Schwarzlose is a neuroscientist at Washington University in Saint Louis. She holds a PhD in Neuroscience from MIT and has served as chief editor of the scholarly journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

    Rebecca’s research investigates how minds and brains conceptualize complex natural phenomena and generate a mental inventory of meaningful objects, actions, and social groups. Her doctoral research focused on the neural representation of crucial object categories such as human faces and bodies and the overarching organization of category information in the brain.  Her current research investigates the neural bases for atypical sensory processing and prediction in childhood and their relations to psychopathology.

    Brainscapes was supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

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  • 212: Doruk Gundogan | From Lawyer To Actor, Observation, Questioning Everything, And Life Shifts

    You might know of Doruk Gundogan from his lawyering (word I just made up) after studying law at Cambridge, or you may know of him currently as an actor in the United States. Doruk joins us on episode 212 of the show to let us know about his story and perspective, and how an observational style gives a sense of self.

    Show notes:

    • why observation is a big basis for how you understand others and develop your own style in response
    • how the small details of a person’s actions and behaviors can say a lot about who they are in a short period of time
    • how not being too concerned with your success in a category gives you a big advantage in the category
    • what kind of risk it is to change up your living situation or profession in a world where these things are commonly fixed in place
    • how the visceral response to the uncomfortable leads to the expression of our internal humanity that was there the whole time
    • why it is very valuable to question all that is around you
    • how Doruk had a long-term plan to shift to his current acting role that felt more appropriate as a thing
    • battle between me and Doruk inspired by no one else who was there

    Glad to have Doruk on the show~

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  • 201: Daniel Z. Lieberman | Dopamine, Creativity, Love, And Progression In “The Molecule of More”

    Dr. Daniel Z. Lieberman, co-author of The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity–And Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race, joins on episode 201 of the show~.

    He divides his time between teaching, writing, and patient care. He is a clinical psychiatrist who received his medical degree from New York University School of Medicine, after undergraduate work at St John’s College. He is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at George Washington University, and is also Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs.

    In this episode, we discussed:

    • Dr. Lieberman’s career, and the steps he took to be where he is at
    • some of the nice features of the Great Books program at St. John’s College
    • the details of his co-written book that focuses on dopamine
    • anticipatory effects and the connection to the unexpected
    • how drugs give hits of dopamine, and the pull to return to them
    • percentages of rewards needed to keep people playing games or using social media
    • desire dopamine versus control dopamine, and how dopaminergic individuals can flourish
    • agentic and affiliative relationships, and the people who prefer each type
    • control dopamine’s importance inhibiting aggression driven by passion
    • 7R variant of the D4 receptor gene for dopamine and its link to migration
    • conservative and liberal perspective, and their connection to a dopamine or H&N(here-and-now) based set of neurotransmitters
    • liability of dopaminergic individuals, and their elements of most success
    • how to take into account one’s state for balance purposes
    • and more

    You can check out his website here, or take a look at his book The Molecule of More on Amazon. It was voted on Forbes as one of the Must-Read Brain Books of 2018.

    Glad to have Dr. Lieberman on the show.

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